


don't give your name, you don't have one

by brinnanza



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, MAG 22: Colony, character study disguised as fic, lonely!martin foreshadowing, sometimes you gotta do a deep dive into martin's two week depression terror to Cope, suicidal ideation (briefly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 21:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: By the third day held hostage by the remains of Jane Prentiss, Martin finally allows himself to acknowledge what he’s known, on some level, since the beginning.No one is coming to save him.





	don't give your name, you don't have one

**Author's Note:**

> some people?? torture martin?? to cope?????? listen jonny did this to him already I just described it a little. thanks to anternika for looking this over for me. title is from hadestown (wait for me) because apparently that's where magnus fic titles come from now.
> 
> oh dunk this is my 100th fic. *rainbow flags*

By the third day held hostage by the remains of Jane Prentiss, Martin finally allows himself to acknowledge what he’s known, on some level, since the beginning.

No one is coming to save him.

The hours stretch on, dark and empty, and Prentiss knocks. Martin checks and rechecks the windows, the doorjamb. Whenever the constant terror ebbs for even a moment, despair is lurking just beneath it like a riptide, waiting to drag him under. He could drown in it all too easily, he knows, alone in his tiny flat with no company but the old words of long-dead poets on his bookshelf. 

He almost lets it take him once or twice, indulges in the shuddering, bone-deep melancholy of his isolation. Of course no one is coming for him. Who is even there to notice his absence? He still writes his mum diligently every week, because he always has, because she’s his mum and he _should_, but if he’s honest with himself, he’s known for a long time that she isn’t reading them. Probably isn’t even receiving them, just has the care home staff bin them as they come in.

_Dear Mum, _he thinks as he stares at the front door, flinching at every tap, every creak, every distant, wet squelch he strains to hear. _Sorry I haven’t written in a while; I couldn’t get to a postbox because of the terrifying worm lady at the door. You’re probably not reading this. That’s okay; I’m not sure it’s really for you anyway_.

He huffs out a weak chuckle because the alternative is a sob, and he’s not quite ready to give in to that yet. Martin’s not actually stupid, whatever his coworkers say about him. He knows where he’s not wanted. His colleagues at the Magnus Institute are nice enough of course, nodding their thanks when he makes tea, responding to his small talk with the appropriate level of polite interest, but he doesn’t seem to resonate, like those monsters from Doctor Who that you forget as soon as you turn away.

And that’s… it’s fine. Martin is used to it. It doesn’t make kindness any less important, and even a superficial connection is still a connection. He can only imagine what Jon must think of him - probably glad for the break from Martin’s general incompetence and fussing, if he’s noticed at all. Maybe he’s just spent the last three days sat at his desk, poring over statements and pretending he doesn’t need to sleep or eat. Or maybe Tim and Sasha have managed to drag him out to the pub across the street for a drink. Maybe right now, he’s squashed into a booth between them, red-faced and laughing at one of Tim’s terrible jokes. 

Maybe he’s fine. 

Jane Prentiss raps patiently at the door, and Martin pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders, like the soft knit fabric can ward off the chill inside of him.

\--

By the sixth day, Martin is pretty sure he’s going to die in his tiny flat, utterly forgotten. He’s not quite so far gone as to be glad of it, but he’s not exactly frightened of it either. In fact, it’s difficult to muster up any emotions about his impending demise at all. It just… is. An inevitable fact of the universe. The sun will rise, the world will turn, and Martin Blackwood will be eaten by worms.

Someone will have to tell his mum, once he’s gone. He wonders if she’ll be relieved. If she’ll resent him for leaving too, even after pushing him away for so long. She’ll probably have to move care homes after losing Martin’s wages, and she’ll certainly resent him for that. 

He tips his head back against the back of the sofa, and his head pounds in time with the rhythmic knocking at the door. His heart is rabbit-fast, like he is the terrified prey of some apex predator, struck still in its yellow gaze. He’s exhausted, strung out on nearly a week of constant adrenaline. His eyes slip closed for just a moment, the briefest of respites, before they fly open again, fixed on the door, on the towels stuffed in the crack, for any sign of incursion.

He wonders vaguely who will find his body. If there will even be a body left to find. Maybe he’ll just burst into worms, be listed as ‘foreign organic matter’ in the eventual police report after someone calls in about the smell.

He hopes it isn’t Mrs. Henderson next door. No one deserves to find the vile, squirming mass that will probably be all that’s left of him, but Mrs. Henderson had always been kind to him. Or - she’d always been civil, anyway, had nodded politely when they passed in the hallway. She had _acknowledged _him, noticed his presence instead of letting her gaze slide past him. 

Martin can probably count on one hand the number of people who’ve ever really seen him.

And it had been safer, at first, to blend into the background at the Institute. If no one looked at him too closely, no one would have cause to investigate his CV and find out how much of it is fictional. He kept his head down, did his job, was friendly in a forgettable sort of way. It was intentional, flying under the radar.

He’s not cut out for the spotlight anyway.

\--

By the tenth day, Martin’s sense of time has gone a bit funny. There’s no power, so the displays on the microwave and the stove are blank, and he doesn’t wear a watch. The curtains are drawn tight, windows barricaded by furniture and spare cloth, and the wan sunlight that manages to filter in through the cracks in the blinds is indistinguishable from the yellow streetlights. He’s been rationing his torch use, mostly for times when the terror ebbs in favor of prickling boredom, and the only way to maintain even the barest grip on sanity is to read through _English Poets of the 18th Century_ again.

It is dark and too quiet absent the hum of electricity. The only sounds are Martin’s own breathing and Jane Prentiss knocking, always knocking. She might stop, might pause to try and lure Martin into a false sense of security, but Martin can always hear it. He doesn’t sleep, not really, but the _tap tap tap_ follows him down into every fragmented almost-dream.

Time… passes. Seconds bleed into minutes into days as Martin lies in bed, staring unseeing into darkness at his ceiling. He listens. He dozes off a few times, and he can’t tell if it’s minutes or hours later that he’s jolted awake by a surge of adrenaline and the phantom touch of squirming things.

There’s a tremor in his hands that will not go away as he inspects every inch of his legs for worms, checks and double checks the blankets, the windows, the doorway. His throat burns with the acid splash of fear, stomach roiling. He can’t breathe, hasn’t been able to take a real breath in so long he thinks he might have forgotten how to do it, like his lungs have shriveled up. All he can manage are gasping pants without enough air in them, leaving him lightheaded, chest aching with the effort.

He eats when he remembers, choking down a tin of peaches, a bowl of cold soup, a dry handful of cereal. He shivers and shakes apart, checking his skin, checking the windows and the doors and the drains for worms, and he wonders how much longer before they burst through. 

If it might be easier to just open the door.


End file.
